I wrote a diary throughout my formative years and have been blogging for a couple of years so I thought this wouldn’t be so difficult … but never has the text box felt so white. Hence I run to the safe haven of image manipulation (just like I did on the MA blogging module) and rush to photograph, crop, enhance, upload and post an image that might represent the birth of a thesis… or perhaps it’d be better described as the release of an egg which may or may not get fertilised? Hell, it’s nice not having to be precious about content and expression … at this early stage…
The principle field: media education.
My guiding impulse: there should be more media-making going on in schools.
Other fields that may come in: cultural studies, media literacy inc. film & moving image literacy, popular culture, theories on learning, pedagogy, design, film making, animation, visual culture, anthropology, sociology, critical thinking, arts education, new media, multiliteracies, multimodality, social semiotics,
Discourses/disciplines in random order that may feature: academicism, technicism, futurism, digitisation, pragmatism, aestheticism, structure/agency, creativity, personalisation, media convergence, globalisation, capitalism, theory vs. practice, cultural elitism, digital identity, Web 2.0, craftism, social (in)equality, curriculum design, assessment, education policy, ICT in schools, rhetoric, oralcy,
I’m not entirely sure what some of these mean but I’m thinking they need some attention here in the interests of examining the social interrelations that shape a child’s mind.
Topics/questions under consideration:
- Why make media in schools? Interrogation of my celebratory assertions .. do people develop PhDs on questions as wide-ranging as this?
- How far is media-making in schools a manifestation of the struggle for individual agency? too sociological? I’m aware of the potency of the word agency and my relative ignorance of the many interwoven fibres of its constitution. I’m also aware of lapsing into instrumentalism with a question such as this – syllogistic thinking is something I wish to avoid.
- Media making and pedagogical practices. I’m getting more interested in a teacher-oriented study and have been thinking about my inclination towards wanting to train the teachers in my primary school as well as my interest in the IoE Film in a Day project. Perhaps this is the direction I should be moving in?
- Making media in a re-imagined school … inspired by Elliot Eisner
No doubt these notions will evolve over the coming months – perhaps unrecognisably.
Reading
MR suggested 2 books: Stepping Stones to Achieving your Doctorate (Trafford & Leshem) & Achieving a PhD: 10 Students’ Experience (Phillida Salmon). Have ordered these on Amazon.
I’ve started reading John Potters’ thesis – Curating the Self – to see how he’s structured it and get a feel for the required level of interrogation. It’s to do with media production with young people so there are many useful references and insights.
I also want to re-read my MA dissertation and make notes on any lines of enquiry that might be worth pursuing.
Also got to get to grips with Endnote.
Making is Learning 